SYNTHETIC MARIJUANA: Multiple Arrests Made

Des Moines police say they have made multiple arrests after a six month-long investigation in what they described as one of their “biggest synthetic marijuana busts.”

Officers executed search warrants at six convenience stores including Shop N Save stores on MLK, 6th and 2nd avenues, Nat Food Mart stores on Hubbell and 2nd and University Grocery Store. Two homes were also searched in West Des Moines and Waukee.

We saw police removing a dozen boxes of products, a cash register and a computer from Shop N Save on MLK.

Police say anonymous tips, undercover buys and confidential informants led DMPD Narcotics to the stores. Officers and medics were also noticing an increasing number of people suffering from symptoms felt from smoking synthetic marijuana.

Police say six individuals were arrested Tuesday and more arrests are expected by the end of the day. They range from the store owners, managers and workers. They’ll face charges of possession and delivering schedule I controlled substances.

The businesses’ bank accounts have been frozen and their liquor licenses have been temporarily suspended.

Police say the synthetic marijuana being sold was illegal because it contains banned substances and is being marketed as a way to get high. The products, ranging in price from $15 to $50, was sold under the counter and allegedly accounts for up to 50 percent of each convenience stores’ business.

6 comments

IN OTHER NEWS: 2/4/14″Washington D.C.’s City Council voted Tuesday to decriminalize possession of up to one ounce of marijuana, scaling back penalties for the drug in the nation’s capital at a time when states are increasingly doing the same despite wariness from the federal government.

Mayor Vincent Gray has publicly supported the measure and is expected to sign it shortly.

Currently, possession of any amount of pot could land a person in jail for up to six months, with a fine of up to $1,000. Tuesday’s measure reduces the maximum penalty to a $25 civil fine, similar to a parking ticket. Smoking pot in public is still a crime under the new legislation after the measure was watered down at the last minute.”

LKM

Ok let me get this straight………..Iowa is well known for being the Meth capital of the U.S. but the Des Moines police dept. has just spent thousands of dollars on a 6 month long investigation on people selling synthetic pot. Seriously!

pam

DMPD has unlimited resources which will be used to combat all nefarious substances in the ongoing war on drugs(real or otherwise).Come up with a substance and Iowa lawmakers will ban it!Safety is job one!Serve and protect the children from synthetic pot.Hooray DMPD.Please save our children…

Mike Cee

I’d like to see people be allowed to use this stuff as much as they want. Anyone stupid enough to use this or any other drug (including regular marijuana) deserves what they get, up to an including dropping dead from it. Consider it bleach for the gene pool, and decent folk who are smart enough not to do drugs will benefit.

William Denison

For the 1,ooo,ooo,ooo time one cannot overdose on cannabis. One would need over 40,000 times the THC a cannabis user can use at one time for the THC to even have any kind of toxic affect that can harm someone. In other words one would have to smoke 40,000 joints at the same time to even get sick from the THC in cannbis. If one does not get sick from all that THC one will get sick from the family size pac of Oreos they will eat a hour later.